Indoor wood boiler

[Mmaul]

Can some the wonderful people in the boiler room give me some brand names on Indoor wood boilers so I can look them up. I like my insert but when the temp drops below 20 I get cold chills. I currently have a gas weil maclane that exits strait up the other have of my chimney. I am intrested in a possible Dual Fuel so if I'm on vacation I dont have to worry.
Any Help would be appreciated Thanks MMaul

 

[Eric Johnson]

A good place to start is by clicking on the upper and lower banners. There are at least a dozen different brands/models represented by the companies behind the banners, and they're all indoor boilers.

The chimney allocation is an issue, but I'd go with a dedicated gasifier and keep the Weil-Mclain as your backup. One approach would be to use the other flue for the gasifier and power-vent the gas boiler out the side of your foundation.

 

[ManiacPD]

Sounds like you have only one flue? And for dual fuel, you're looking at a gas/wood combo? If so you've got me stumped.

As far as indoor boilers go, there's dozens of manufacturers...HS Tarm and Orlan EKO are the popular gasifiers. Non-gasification units are New Yorker, Biasi, Kerr, Harman, and Benjamin (they make a wood/oil combo if that helps). That's just for starters...

 

[atlarge54]

What are you heating, what is your wood supply and how much are you willing to spend? Am I reading that right, a 14.5 lb. maul???

 

[Mmaul]

I have looked at the banners but I could not find where is would say indoor to outdoor that's good to know that they are all indoor. It is very possible to tie into the same lines as the Weil Maclane I Have alot of room in my basement. I have an old coal shoot that I can throw wood down from where I store my wood already. In a typical gasifier what is wood usage I have a 2500 sqft house. The only down side is not being able to keep enough wood on hand for two years I may not have the yard for it. Yes 14.5# maul its not for the light harted I have come to love the fiskars pro splitting ax but it will not split everything so I use the monster maul for everything the fiskars cant split. The Weil Maclane how would it be power vent out the side of the house would it be like a new 90+ effecient furnace or am I off track completely?
As for money that is a big issue so I am just gather information to see if it would be worth it.
Thanks MMaul

 

[Eric Johnson]

Wood usage will vary widely depending on heat load and other circumstances, but a good rule of thumb is that you'll use about half as much wood as a conventional wood boiler. Some people here get by with as little as 3 or 4 cords per winter (in northern Vermont, no less), while the rest of us use anywhere from 5-10. As the name suggests, the power vent blows your exhaust out of your basement horizontally, so you don't need a chimney. I'm not sure exactly how it works, but with natural gas, there's little or no smoke to begin with. But it won't make your old gas boiler into an efficient new one, if that's what you're asking. Basically, it's just a cheaper way to vent than putting in a conventional chimney.

 

[ManiacPD]

I'd think a gas boiler with a powervent would be ideal as most of your exhaust is just water vapor. The oil burners up here that powervent tend to leave a residue on the siding.

 

[Mmaul]

I dont think much will make it into a effiecient boiler I was wondering more along the line of metal or pvc flue for the gas boiler. I also have one more question wood boiler flue length, is it an issue like on wood stoves my flue length just guessing will be something in the 30' to 35' range is that an issue? Right now I typically go through 5 cords of wood so if its about the same or just 6 cords of wood I think its possible. Some of these boilers say 20 gallons of storage what tends to happen when the house is warm and the fire is still going what happens to heat that its still producing is it wasted or do you have to have an external storage tank.

 

[Mmaul]

So you can power vent a wood boiler that would be Ideal because of where I would put this in relation to the gas boiler. It would only vent maybe 5 ft to the outside of the house.

 

[ManiacPD]

Typically you would have dump zone for overheat. You get heat whether you want it or not, and if you're up to temperature, that's definitely a "not." If you have an area, say a heated garage, you can dump to that without getting too warm in your house. If not just get ready to shed some clothing

 

[ManiacPD]

So you can power vent a wood boiler that would be Ideal because of where I would put this in relation to the gas boiler. It would only vent maybe 5 ft to the outside of the house.

No, you can't power vent the wood boiler. You'd need to p-vent the gas burner and use the chimney for the wood.

 

[Eric Johnson]

^^^tru.dat

When a gasifier satisfies the zones and reaches its high setpoint temp, the blower shuts off and the boiler goes into idle. Typically, you get a little bit of smoke and you lose some efficiency during idle, but a lot of us who don't have storage don't have any major issues with idling. I've never had mine overheat during normal operation. You learn how to fire the boiler over time to minimize idling.

You can install a hot water storage tank and will take up any excess heat produced, which means that the boiler tends to run most efficiently and won't typically idle very much. The storage is like a big battery that you can use even when the boiler is out. Pretty sweet. But you don't need storage, especially if you size the boiler correctly and operate it intelligently.

 

[Mmaul]

Ok so you cant power vent a wood boiler. So are there restrictions on flue height in a wood boiler I will have between 30 and 35 feet of flue. Will it cause an overdraft like in a wood stove? How often do you fire your boiler when there is no storage I understand with storage you may only need to fire a boiler once a day, or is that depends on application question.

 

[Eric Johnson]

Most gasifiers use forced draft blowers, so I don't think overdraft is an issue. On the newer controllers, you can control the fan speed, and theoretically tune your boiler's performance to your conditions. In any event, a 30-35-foot flue sounds ideal. Frequency of firing is just one big "depends." On a typical winter day, I load my boiler up at around 7:00 a.m. and then refill it when I get home at 7:00. Top it off around 10:00 and I've got a nice bed of coals the next morning. House stays 70-75; 80 when you want.

 

[Mmaul]

That is without storage?

 

[ManiacPD]

Overdraft is controlled by using a barometric damper. It opens and sucks air out the room the boiler is in rather than through the boiler itself.

I do not have a gasifier and I fire my boiler 3x/day - before I go to work, when I get home from work, and before I go to bed. On the weekends I put a smaller load of wood in the morning then fill it mid-day so I don't over heat and dump to my first floor (my dump zone). When I'm at work during the week I actually set my programmable thermostat to go to 72 (typically it's at 68) at 8am until 12 noon, then go back to 65. When I get home from work at night I have no fire and only coals left and 120 degree water. By getting the house up to 72 during the morning hours when the fire is hottest I'm essentially using my house as storage and since I'm not home I don't care if it goes to 72. On a 0 degree day with 20 mph winds gusting to 40 mph I came home to a 64 degree house. It's a 3000 sq ft cape on top of a hill in a field. Not bad in my opinion.

 

[Eric Johnson]

Right.

 

[Mmaul]

Thanks everyone for answering some of my questions I have read on the boiler room forum but have not seen a few of these questions thanks alot.

 

[Mmaul]

One more question do you need to run a chimney liner? if yes is it different from the wood stove or insert.

 

[Eric Johnson]

You don't need a ss chimney liner if your existing chimney already has a ceramic liner. The spec for gasifiers is simply a Class A chimney, just like a wood stove. As a practical matter, gasifiers produce little or no creosote in the chimney, so Class A is probably overkill, but it's the Code.

 

[Hydronics]

Something to consider: if you're gas boiler is old and inefficient, replace it with a combination gas/wood gasifier such as a Tarm combo or Woodgun combo -one efficient boiler, one flue, two energy sources. They are about $10,000 though.

 

[PatrickAHS]

I started to reply one comment at a time using quote, but decided to do it all at once.

The Wood Gun
www.alternateheatingsystems.com requires no dump zone, no storage, is an indoor design, is available in dual fuel, and needs no natural draft.